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Tag Archives: chicken

I do love a classic roasted chicken dinner with homemade gravy and homegrown vegetables. Reminds me of grandma’s house and living back on the acreage. *sigh* Now check out this ballin’ meal full of goodness! It had been awhile since I made Mike a good hearty meal so I pulled out all my years of learning from the women of my family to cook up a classy food baby.

I stuffed the chicken with onions, garlic and thyme then moved onto the skin. To make a delicious skin you need to separate it from the meat just enough so as to be able to put a garlic butter mix in between the layers. This creates a crispy skin and adds moisture during the cooking process. For some added colour and flavour I sprinkled a pepper, salt and dried rosemary mix on the outside.

I also made sure to spread out a good layer of vegetables in the pan. I used carrots, onions, brussel sprouts garlic and potatoes that had been tossed in pepper, salt and canola oil. Make sure there are enough vegetables to set the chicken down on. You want the bird to cook evenly and not have a burnt bottom by coming into contact with the pan itself.

After the chicken cook for awhile I took it out and made sure to get as much of the drippings as possible. Turned that into a gravy and voila! Instant awesome sauce to go with the chicken. I also grated some applewood smoked cheddar onto the potatoes for added awesome flavour. Inner fat kids rejoice! Enjoy the eye candy of this uber simple but classically yummy dish.

Mike and I decided it was high time we had ourselves a dinner party! So, we rounded up a few friends and cooked up a storm. There was wine, champagne, delicious food and a lot of laughs, oohs and ahhs as the food was prepared and presented. One of the wines brought by a friend was a red called Balthazar which was sublime!

We had just bought some nice squash from the Farmer’s Market and Mike decided we needed to taste some.

A little back story on why this started off as a snack: We had spent the day out at my parent’s place and ate a big supper before heading back to the city. We were both feeling full but that squash just looked too good to pass up.

Mike roasted off half the squash in the oven and cubed up and froze the other half while holding back a few cubes to fry up. I had cooked off some chicken with various herbs for lunch meals during the work week. Cooking up a storm together in the kitchen led to yet another huge food baby. The end result being the photo featured here.

On this plate we have blanched then pan-fried cubes of acorn, butternut and spaghetti squash. The last of the garden’s tomatoes and roasted squash seeds along with a piece of rum and maple glazed chicken breast, topped off with a drizzle of olive oil and fresh herbs.